The struggle against silence
by milominderbinder
Summary: First, Blaine has a childhood. Then, when that's gone, he has Dalton. Finally, he has Kurt, which is really better than the rest of it put together. His parents are eternally hopeless and sometimes there isn't a song for every occasion.  Eventual Klaine.
1. Chapter 1

First, Blaine has a childhood. Then, when that's gone, he has Dalton. Finally, he has Kurt, which is really better than the rest of it put together. His parents are eternally hopeless and sometimes there isn't a song for every occasion.

Chapter one

He's just turned five years old, and it's the hottest summer he's ever lived through, so his mother fills the freezer with ice cream and invents enough games to keep him amused for the rest of his life. He runs about and does cartwheels and wrestles with their dog in the garden, and when he comes in with lips trembling and grazed knees, she sits him on the kitchen counter and turns the radio on while she cleans him up.

Girls Aloud are playing. Blaine kind of likes them, in the silly way that any five year old can like any music. She doesn't know if he understands it, but still she's noticed he always hums along when their current summer hit is blaring in a shop as she pushes him tiredly through the aisles in the trolley, or when his dad puts the car radio on if they go out for the day. Blaine likes a few other singers, too, all pretty girls with cute voices. She decides this means he's gonna be a real lady killer when he grows up, date a head cheerleader with a smile too big or maybe a student council president with smouldering eyes.

For that summer, though, those days are far away, so Maria just dances him around the kitchen and idly fantasises about her future daughter in law (because really, she always wanted a girl).

*

He's eight now, and it's cold, November weather teasing them with frosted windscreens and numb fingers as they stamp their way through the streets. Blaine doesn't mind though, so he dances in front of them happily, trying to walk backwards, huffing out his breath and laughing when it curls back around him like smoke.

"Look! Mum! I'm a dragon!"

He holds out his coat and uses it as wings, pretends to soar above the clouds and breathe fire and hunt innocent villagers. There's nobody else about, but Maria still feels embarrassed, and she clutches David's hand and scolds Blaine to calm down, honey, you're too old for these games. Blaine doesn't mind, he's already bouncing off in some other direction, and his attention span these days is surely getting shorter by the second, she decides. Now he's enamoured by some early Christmas tune winding around them as it escapes from a nearby house. He's humming along, like usual, dancing ahead of them so he can stop and show them some strange little dance move he appears to be way too proud of. Maria rolls her eyes, tells him to honestly Blaine calm down, we'll be home in a minute, you can mess about then, and walks a little faster. Blaine stops humming, and for a second she considers the miracle that he's actually listened to her for once, thank the lord, but no, a moment later he opens his mouth again and now he's singing instead.

It's the first time she's heard him sing, and she stops dead in her tracks. Frowns with her eyebrows, glances unsurely at David, questions honey who taught you to sing like that in a much gentler voice than she had just abandoned. Blaine shrugs, serendades a pretend microphone and twists his knees around strangely, but it's not exactly annoying anymore, because he's pretty much kind of amazing.

She shrugs it off. He's just singing for the sake of it. It doesn't mean a thing to him, he doesn't know baritone from tenor or good singing from bad singing. He doesn't know much, really, because he's a daydreaming sort of child, and his grades are unpredictable and his hobbies change faster than the flowers on the kitchen table, so of course music doesn't mean anything to him.

He sounds lovely, but he's going to be a doctor.

She smiles, and tells him to shush, and let's just focus on getting home shall we, I'm freezing, we'll save concerts for later.

Blaine shrugs, because the song has ended anyway.

*

He's twelve, and he doesn't want to talk to his mother. Not since they were watching a film together and some pretty girl came on screen and she prodded him wow, honey, she's pretty isn't she, you could definitely date a girl like that, and his father laughed a bit and agreed, said, sure, son, you could get any girl in your class at the rate you're going, because Blaine was filling out nicely and he'd already had his growth spurt so he was a bit taller than other guys his age. They had smiled at him fondly and expected him to blush or roll his eyes or tell them about some pretty blonde he actually had eye for at the moment, like a regular teenager. Instead his cheeks coloured angrily and he leapt out of his chair.

"For god's sake, not everyone wants a girlfriend, you know!"

They'd been shocked, but David had muttered puberty after he stormed out, so she figured it was okay for a while. She's wondered about Blaine, a few times, just very recently and only in the dead of night and the safety of her own mind. She's wondered if he might be gay. But that's stupid, and she quickly dismisses the idea every time she thinks it. Blaine is a kid. Plenty of time for girls later. And he still loves pretty girl singers so she has hope for him yet.

*

He's fourteen and wishing he didn't have to take Spanish. It's not that he finds it too difficult, or that it's mind numbingly dull, but more that the guys who sit behind him like kicking his chair and he just knows that any day now they're going to figure him out and he'll be getting a lot worse than that.

Today, though, they're about to break up for half term, so the teacher is collapsed in his office at the back and the class are entertained by a film. It flickers in the background of Blaine's thoughts, and his peers are glued to it by blank stares which mindlessly follow the movement on the screen. In his head, he recites lyrics, and tries to ignore the angry scribbles kids have left on the desk, this lesson is so gay and fag fag fag whispering to him like a never ending reminder that most of the people around him would only just begrudge him his existence.

He thinks of his parents, whose lips tighten in silence when two boys on the television screen hold hands.

Tonight, he thinks. I'll tell them tonight.

Something blows up on screen. Everybody laughs. For the thousandth time, he wishes he could make himself change.

*

He's nearly fifteen now, and he's really going to do it. He's going to tell his parents, and they're going to be fine with it, and then he's going to go with Kyle to the Sadie Hawins dance and have a wonderful time and make all those dumb jocks see the error of their ways and then the rest of his life will just be spent dancing down a rainbow with a kitten in each hand and glitter raining from the sky.

Yeah. Right.

He really is going to tell them, though. He's been on the Internet for the best part of two weeks, gazing at the screens of chatrooms and help sites, scribbling notes about stages of denial and structured arguments and tones of voice, equal parts horrifying and reassuring himself by reading different people's stories. He's planned and learnt reasonable responses to everything they could possibly say, done everything perfectly, prepared himself the way he never had before, every other week for the last two years when he's convinced himself he's about to tell them, and has sat at the kitchen table after school with a squirming stomach and sweaty palms just to run away the second he hears their keys in the door. Today he's sat at that same table, as always, about to be sick with nerves as he watches the clock tick from four to five and awaits the sound of cars in the driveway.

They arrive.

He's dizzy.

"Hey honey," his mum is saying absently as she drops her bag onto the table next to him. Now she's rooting through the cupboards, pulling out wine glasses, going about her routine like he's not even there. Which he's actually not, in spirit, because he's pretty sure he's about to faint or cry or for gods sakes just do something.

"Mum," he tries, and his voice cracks. She looks around, a little curious, pauses in her rummaging through the cupboards.

"What is it?" she asks. His head swims, wonders if she can see how he's feeling, if she thinks he's sick or on drugs or something equally macabre.

"Can I talk to you and dad for a minute?" asks his voice, and his stomach makes a valiant effort to crawl up his throat and stop the words before they come out, but it doesn't work, so now he's said it and he thinks he's going to be sick on top of everything else.

"DAVID!" she calls, not taking her eyes off Blaine. He appears in the doorway a few moments later, shrugging off his suit jacket and loosening his tie, flicking through some case files absent mindedly. He stops when he catches Maria's eye. She seems to be trying to tell him something, but he doesn't know what.

Blaine clears his throat.

"I, erm, need to talk to you guys," he starts. His voice sounds feeble and wobbles. His parents exchange another look before sliding into the chairs across from him and crossing their arms in a freaky display of unintentional unison. A united front. Blaine gulps.

"Are you in some sort of trouble?" his mum asks. He can see her eyes flickering, her fruit machine brain pinging through the worst case scenarios and randomly choosing one to focus on. Expelled from school beat someone up on crack hit someone with the car got someone pregnant failing all his classes help what do I do.

"No, I'm fine," he replies, willing his voice to get stronger. He watches for another moment as she deletes all her old theories and instantly creates more. He doesn't know whether he finds this reassuring or annoying.

"Spit it out, then," his dad says brusquely once there have been a few more minutes of uncomfortable silence. They watch him. He gulps.

"I... I just wanted to talk to you because I really love you guys, and it's really important to that - I mean, for us to be completely honest with each other which I..."

"Honey," his mum prompts, in a less than gentle way.

"Right, I... I just thought you should know that it's totally not a big deal, but I, erm, I'm gay."

There's a pause. They look frozen, their eyes widened and their minds whirring. Blaine can almost hear his mothers thoughts, all wait what did he say I must have misheard him what sounds like gay play yay way may hey day Jay... Maybe he wants to change his name to Jay that must be it, and his dads eyes are just going nonononononononononono.

"You..." His dads voice comes out strange, so he clears his throat and begins again. "You're awfully young to be thinking about those sorts of thinks, Blaine."

"You're the ones who've been pushing me to get a girlfriend," he reminds them.

"I..." His mother this time, trailing off just like his dad, the most in sync couple even when they don't mean it. She, too, tries again. "I just think you should think about what you're telling us, honey."

She's pleading, although she'd never admit it, and he doesn't know whether he wants to cry or yell.

"It would mean a lot if you guys would say you accept me," he says in a reasonable voice, just like the websites told him, and he doesn't give in to his emotions because this has been hard on him so it's bound to be hard on them, too.

"Well, we..."

They exchange a look. His dad stops speaking and his mother starts.

"Of course we accept you, sweetie, and we will love you no matter what. We're just saying, there's no pressure on you to decide any of this stuff now. Maybe try dating a few girls. This might just be a phase. You are awfully young, after all, Blaine. We love you, hon, and I would hate for you to suffer for this unless you're sure. Wy don't we just wait a year or so, and then try talking to us again if you're more sure."

She pats his hand sweetly, and he leaves confused, because he has done everything just like he planned, but he still feels like maybe he hasn't come out at all.

They stop talking about girls, but they don't talk about boys, either. In fact, none of them mention it again for months.

*

He's just fifteen and he's taking up boxing. He'd done exactly what he promised, taken Kyle to the dance and danced with him happily and although there was no premise for a kiss because they were just friends, it was kind of everything he wanted from his first school dance.

Except the part where he nearly dies.

He's in hospital for two nights and they bandage up various scrapes and he lives in a suit of slowly yellowing bruises for a month. He hadn't really told his parents that Kyle was his date, had just mentioned a friend he was going with, and their lips had tightened because of course they knew, but it had become this big thing they never talked about so they'd just brought him a tux and told him to have fun. When they find him in the emergency room his mother is crying, and his dad is uncomfortable. They obligatorily wonder why anyone would do that.

Guess I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time is what comes out of Blaine's mouth, though he really just wants to scream at them because damn it, they know why it happened.

When the bruises are nearly gone, his dad mentions the possibility of taking a class or something.

"Maybe you should learn how to hit," he says, and he doesn't say because it's a tough world out there and if you're really going to insist on this gay stuff then most people are going to hate you and lots of people are going to try and start stuff and I need you to be able to defend yourself because I can't do it and I love you but you're making everything so so difficult right now. But Blaine knows he's thinking it, and he appreciates that, because he knows that his parents really do care about him. They're just lost in a cloud of bad decisions.

"Just in case," his mother says when they bring it up again over dinner, and it turns out they've already done the research and they give him a brochure for the local gym and tell him to pick a class. He chooses boxing, though he'd really rather Kung Fu or something gentle, because it seems like the manliest and that's what his dad would want. If Blaine can't be straight he can at least try and please his parents in other ways.

It also helps him get out his anger, which if he's honest, he has a lot of.

Every time his dad drives him to the class, he looks a little bit prouder of Blaine. After nearly a month of nobody mentioning school, his parents push another brochure across the dinner table to him. This time it's not a sweaty local gym where he'll learn to beat people up; it's a private school. All boys. Cute uniform. The words that leap out at him, though, are near the back when he flicks through the brochure in confusion. Zero tolerance no bullying.

His parents have money, so even when he sees the fees, he doesn't feel bad about nodding.

*

He's still fifteen but now he's fifteen in a summer heat, the air warmer than anyone can remember for years, and he finally feels like he has an excuse to be lazy like a normal teenager. He spends the first week sleeping straight through the mornings, then beating up a punch bag in the basement for hours in the afternoon. He doesn't see his friends. He doesn't really have any friends, since he's cut the cord with everyone from his old school but still not yet started Dalton and met new ones.

Maria remembers ten years ago, Blaine crying on the counter and sucking on an ice lolly as she bandaged up a grazed knee. Now he's taller than her, and a fighter, and he's had a whole lot worse than grazed knees but she's never seen him cry, not once, since he told them he was gay. She supposes he must have, because it got so bad for a while there that she herself had been crying herself to sleep every night, but Blaine must have saved it for when he was hidden in the shower or curled up under his sheets.

Blaine still sings along to pretty girl singers on the radio, but that has a whole other meaning now. The daughter in law she once dreamed of in her head is looking more and more masculine these days, until she's picturing the first person Blaine brings home as a skinny indie boy with floppy hair and troubled eyes. That would be his type, she thinks. He's not too much into girly things, so she can't imagine him going for one of those fashionista stereotypes.

She's scared but she accepts it. She mentions this to David one night, the first time they've talked about it in so many words since it all began. The next day, he brings home an engine.

"Blaine, we're building a car," he announces, rolling his son out of bed when he sees it's past eleven in the morning and ripping his curtains open violently. Blaine groans from the floor, twisted in the sheets, shields his eyes against the sunlight and looks ready to kill someone. David pretends not to notice the copy of Vogue on the desk or the increasingly feminine looking cardigans hanging in the wardrobe. Pretending not to notice things is becoming David's forte, really.

Blaine moans and groans for a while until his dad pulls out the words bonding experience, and says them with such desperate sincerity that they are both obligated to spend the summer pretending to know or care about cars, clapping each other on the back and not complaining when their clothes get dirty, though they both secretly care. David's never been a real man's man, he wears expensive suits and works in an office and gets spa treatments when he's stressed, and sometimes he wonders if it's his fault Blaine has ended up this way, like he didn't have a good enough male role model or something so he got confused about how guys are supposed to be. Then sometimes he thinks Blaine must have just been born this way and there's nothing he can do to change it. He's thinking that side of things more and more lately, but that doesn't mean he can't try.

Maria doesn't help, because she's talking about it now, maybe not to Blaine but definitely to David. Late at night she whispers about how she would imagine Blaine's girlfriends when he was younger, but now the smiling cheerleader has become a lanky football player and the smouldering student council member has become an exotic guy from band. She's upset by it, he knows. She really wanted a girl. But maybe, just maybe, she's starting to accept it now.

He remembers her dancing Blaine around the kitchen when he was younger, the cutest kid in the world with mad curls and huge eyes. He doesn't admit that he cries sometimes.

Bottom of Form


	2. Chapter 2

He's fifteen, and the leaves are changing, which means it's autumn and that means it's time for Dalton. He channels all his insecurities into his hair and then gels it down to a caged perfection. He refuses to be nervous. If anyone does anything, he can report them, and for once it will make a difference. That alone is enough to make the squirming sickness in his stomach settle into something a little more like traditional nerves than blind terror.

He doesn't tell anyone how he's feeling, but when he's in the shower and the bathroom mirror fogs up, he writes lyrics into it with the pad of his finger. He can't think of a song that fits, so he writes his own, then sings along to it under the cover of the faucet. His parents aren't speaking to him. He doubts they've even noticed they're doing it, but beyond the perfunctory hello's and have a nice day's that they spew out upon entering leaving the house, they have nothing left to say to him.

He doesn't mind, though. He doesn't have much to say to them, either.

His first day at Dalton he gels his hair down like he's been practicing, folds himself into a perfectly ironed shirt and blazer, takes three tries to do up his tie but eventually manages without having to ask his father for help. That, he feels, is an achievement in itself, so when they drop him off at the gates he's already in a good mood. He is shown around by the vice principal and handed a schedule and map, commended on his smart uniform (keep it up, that's the kind of neatness we like all year round here at Dalton) and then sent on his way. His first class is English. He is silently assigned a seat, and the friendly boy to his left introduces himself, and it is nice.

The whole day, really, is nice.

Everyone is calm and friendly and sure, a little bit repressed, but you can't have everything and if it means he won't have to worry about people tearing up his books, he'll take it. Teachers are strict but obviously know what they're talking about, and nobody mucks about in class. Nobody asks why Blaine transferred, where he came from, or if he's gayer than a double rainbow. It's like his past doesn't exist.

He goes home smiling, and when his parents ask, he actually tells them about his day.

*

Still fifteen, he wraps himself in a thick coat and a scarf with the Dalton colours on, prepares himself for the cold. A few months at a different school and already he can barely recognise himself. He's been taller than his peers all his life, but now he's missed a growth spurt and they've overtaken, so he's had to find other ways to stick out besides his height. He does this by being bubbly, smiling a lot, climbing over furniture to create the impression of being totally laid back and authoritative. His hair remains plastered to his skull, and his parents smile over the dinner table to hide a thousand unsaid things.

He makes some friends, and for the first time since he can remember, he starts singing in front of people.

That's what ends up changing his life, because oh my god, something is actually making him happy.

*

He's fifteen, and he doesn't mean to audition for the Warblers. People never believe him when he says it was an accident, but it was. He'd seen them around school, sure, at their little performances or just walking down the halls in a clump, been blown away by their immaculate appearances and smooth vocals. He's probably fallen in love with each one of them at some point or another by the time he's been at Dalton two months. But he still never means to audition.

He's discovered in a winter haze by a guy he later learns is called Daniel, and is on the senior council at the time. Blaine's just walking through the courtyard, totally innocent, kicking his feet through the thin layer of snow on the ground and smiling because nobody's tried to make him eat it yet. To him, that makes Dalton the height of civilisation. He's never wished he was back at his old school once.

Then, all of a sudden, he can hear the faint tune of a catchy Christmas song straining out of one of the windows above him. He tries to ignore it for a second, but it's one of those ones that probably come from inside the devil himself and worm their way through your brain until you can never think of anything else again.

He hates himself for it, but he starts to hum along.

Then, because after a quick glance he ascertains that nobody is around, he switches to singing.

It's silly but he knows all the words and he's happy and he doesn't really care, 'cus nobody's gonna steal his bag or draw dicks on his face with sharpie at Dalton, not even if he swoons over Johnny Depp or makes an idiot of himself singing cheesy songs in public. There might be a few guys who'd roll their eyes or purse their lips, but nobody can do anything or say anything. And he can report them if they do. Dalton genuinely is a dream come true.

He smiles thinking that, and sings a little louder. He stops messing about when he hits a high note and uses every breath in his lungs to keep it up just as long as the singer in the original. He almost feels proud of himself then, cus he's noticed lately that he's been doing that more and more. He's not had another growth spurt as far as he can see, but maybe his lungs are developing anyway, becoming out of proportion with his short frame. He likes that idea. He drops his bag and starts doing a spectacularly goofy dance around the fountain while he sings.

When the song ends and he spins around with a grin on his face, ready to continue across the courtyard, he's met with three smiling and all too familiar faces. His heart drops and he blushes.

"Oh, hi," he says, because they're staring at him and not even trying to hide it. He hates that he recognises them, but of course he does cus they're the closest thing to royalty Dalton has. They're Warblers. And what if they're mad at him? What if they want to keep the impromptu performances for themselves? They're smiling, though, so there's nothing to suggest that's the case, but he's still hopelessly scared. After all, they're cool. And he is most definitely the opposite. He can gel his hair down and ditch his geeky glasses for contacts and hide in his uniform as much as he wants, but the fact remains that Blaine Anderson is always going to be a bit of a loser.

There's a weird look on their faces as he waits for their response to his greeting. Blaine can't quite place it. If he didn't know better, he'd say they looked impressed.

"Hi," says the blonde one, who's standing in the middle. "I'm Daniel. This is David, and Wes."

He gestures to the others, one handsome and dark skinned, the other Asian with a softly cheeky grin.

"I'm Blaine," Blaine replies hesitantly, just because it seems like the sensible thing to do. Smile, shake hands, introduce yourself, and hope beyond hope that nobody bring up the fact that you were just caught doing a mortifying dance around the school grounds, singing at the top of your painfully untrained voice. It's ingrained in him. The politeness. The avoidance of anything awkward.

"Well, Blaine," says Daniel. "Congratulations, you just auditioned for the Warblers."

That doesn't make any sense. Blaine tries to say as much.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"You're an amazing singer. We lost a lot of our main talent when last year's seniors graduated. We need your voice."

Blaine is fantastically flattered for a second, before he realises what must be going on.

"There's no need to be mean," he says, picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. "I know I'm not great or anything, but you don't have to make fun of me. I didn't know anyone else was out here, or I would have kept quiet."

Three pairs of eyebrows raise at him in perfect unison.

"We're not kidding, Blaine," David assures him.

"You were really amazing," Wes adds, shooting him a small, semi-encouraging smile. Blaine has gone from embarrassed to ecstatic to upset to completely confused in just the few short minutes he's been talking to them. He's not usually one for mood swings, but he wonders if the hectic life of the performer is so strong in these near-rock-stars that the drama has rubbed off on him already.

"I - I don't - I mean, I've never sung before," he stutters out, half wishing he could just run away and never see them again.

"What? You've not had vocal training, or anything?"

He shakes his head and then gives a semi-apologetic shrug, though he's not sure he knows what he's sorry for.

"Okay, now you have to join. If this is what you sound like raw I can't imagine how good you'll be with a little training."

"Yeah, just come to the meeting tonight and do that in front of everyone."

Blaine must still be looking dubious, because Daniel claps him lightly on the shoulder and tries to reassure him.

"We swear we're not joking. If anyone so much as tries to laugh at you, you have permission to punch me straight in the face."

Blaine looks at Daniel's soft, friendly face, and then thinks back to summer boxing lessons and a haze of sweat and aching muscles and the harsh swing of the punch bag every time he knocked it with a little more force than he'd been able to before. And he thinks, yeah, okay. I could do that. Take care of myself, if I needed to. If people tried to start something with me. He wouldn't hit Daniel, though, of course not, even if it did turn out that they were playing a horrible joke on him just to try and make him embarrass himself but still. It's nice. Just, knowing that he could. He's never really felt, before, that he doesn't have anything to be afraid of. But now he knows he can take care of himself. Wholly and completely.

So he still doesn't quite trust them, but he nods, too.

"What song would I need to sing?" he asks.

Later that night he stands in Dalton's horrifically fancy choir room and is told he's been unanimously voted in to the Warblers. He's not sure how it happened, but he seems to have found his thing.

*

He's coming up to sixteen the first time he invites his parents to hear him sing. It's not his first solo, and it's not a competition or anything, but for some reason he feels it's important for them to hear him. When he'd joined the Warblers, he'd assumed he was going to be humming in the background like most of the new kids. He was wrong. They'd lost their three most popular soloists through last year's graduation, and they were clearly a little bit lost. There wasn't a star; nobody really stood out, between the uniforms and the orderly meetings and the perfect harmonising. So, within a month of joining, Blaine was asked to audition for a solo. He got it on the spot. Of course, everyone made a point of telling him how unusual that was - how normally it was years until you got noticed, and only seniors got competition solos, and how really they were breaking a lot of traditions for him just by letting him join this late in the term anyway. But he still got the vibe that nobody really minded. Some of them even looked a little bit proud of him.

And now six months have gone past, where they've done sectionals and regionals and unfortunately not got to nationals, but they've had a good time trying and more importantly, Blaine has been singing. A lot. While everyone else hums behind him. And there's going to be no break in that pattern tonight, when Blaine will be dancing around at some fancy alumni thing with his own personal charming army behind him. He's kind of okay about it, not crippling nervous like usual which he hopes is a good sign that he's improving, so he decides that he's going to invite his parents.

His dad seems a little unsure of how to answer when he first brings it up. They've developed a careful policy in their house of dealing with Blaine's sexuality by a brilliant and enforced method of complete avoidance of the topic, but this kind of thing is just... Well, it's really gay. At least in his dad's eyes. Blaine knows that, and he hasn't even told them yet that he'll be singing a girl's song. David and him had originally sat down together to try and go through and change all the pronouns, but it was getting too complicated and in the end he just told them all that it didn't matter. It was art, after all. And art was designed to push boundaries, right?

So he asks his parents.

They pause for half a second too long before they say yes, but Blaine decides not to notice, because at least they'd agreed to go. He feels like things are starting, maybe, to get better.

*

He's a day away from sixteen, so he's hanging out at his house with Wes, David and a guy called Nick, watching films and eating pizza. Kind of like a party. Blaine hasn't had a birthday party for ages, not since the days of clowns and balloons and dressing up as Harry Potter characters had passed, and none of the other kids would accept an invite from him anyway. Blaine doesn't really know if his taste in movies is synonymous with other guys', because he doesn't get off on explosions and car chases and things like that, but the fact that these are people he knows from Glee club gives him the courage to pull out his collection of musicals.

He's glad he does. David's face lights up as he begins to root through them and Wes immediately starts talking about Audrey Hepburn being his first crush.

"That's the first reason I liked Liz," he admits with a laugh. "She was tiny, and she had the hair, like, y'know?"

Pixie cut, 50's era, Blaine thinks, but doesn't say it because sometimes he just feels so gay. He's met Wes' girlfriend - he has to admit, she does have an air of Hepburn about her, but apart from that her redeeming qualities are few and far between. Everyone is secretly hoping they'll break up soon, but nobody says it, because they're all in a good mood that night.

"You always had a thing for old fashioned girls," David acknowledges. "My first celebrity crush was Jennifer Aniston. My sisters made me watch Friends and I never went back. Had the entire boxset."

They all laughed a bit and Blaine kind of thought that was it and started to move back towards the movie selections, but then Nick was talking.

"Mine was Drew Barrymore," he says, leaning back on his elbows and smiling. "Charlie's Angels spurred pretty much my entire sexual awakening. Puberty wouldn't have been the same without it."

They're all laughing and swapping stories and being so casual about everything, and Blaine's hopelessly confused, because he might never have had close friends before but he's heard guys in the locker room and in class and they don't talk about stuff like this. Not in this easy, non competitive, totally comfortable way, with no pressure and no bragging and no embarrassment. He doesn't know what to do, but it's amazing, the idea that sometimes it's okay to just talk, not just because it's the opposite of the never ending suppression he has been taught, but also because it is so utterly without the agenda of impressing anyone or pleasing anyone or serving a particular purpose that he falls in love with it.

Talking.

What a wonderful thing to do. He decides to do it a lot, now that he is this new him.

So when Wes turns to him with a smile and offers Jennifer Aniston's not bad, but Audrey Hepburn is a classic, don't you think Blaine? he doesn't nod quickly or blush or cringe in awkwardness like usual. Instead he grins at then, runs a hand gently over his perfectly gelled back hair, pretends like he's not dizzy from nerves.

"Can't say I'd really thought about it," he admits. "I spent most of my adolescence fawning over Gene Kelly."

He knows they won't find it uncomfortable. He figures they'll smile a little and maybe it'll be a tiny bit awkward, just because it's not common ground or whatever and he's still the minority here, but they won't hold it against him or think any less of him just because he brings up his sexuality in conversation. These are the new, brilliant people he is going to surround his new self with, and they don't have a problem with him being gay.

He knows all this, yet he's still blown away by what happens next.

"That's cool," says Wes, not even a moment's hesitation. "I had a total crush on him when I saw Singing in the Rain. Must have been about fourteen. I had a poster of him in my room and everything."

David and Nick both laugh, and Blaine tries to look like it's no big deal but his heart feels like it's to explode because he just can't deal with this. These people are not only kind and accepting of him, but they're so comfortable in their own sexualities that they can actually talk about other guys without feeling threatened or needing to beat someone up under the bleachers or... He decides he's never going to leave Dalton. Not ever. He's going to hide in the dorms for three years and get a university degree online, and then come back to teach there up until the day he's quite literally forced to retire.

"Yeah, at least you guys went to mixed middle schools," David responds, grinning now. "I've been at all boys my whole life. I pretty much had no choice but to fantasise about guys when I was fourteen."

None of them look at him like he's crazy. He's dating a girl from their sister school and Blaine bets she wouldn't judge him if she was hearing that, either. He's straight and he's amazing and they're all so amazing and Blaine just...

He doesn't realise he's lost faith that there are good people in the world until he finds some again.


	3. Chapter 3

He's sixteen, and he meets Kurt absent mindendly on an autumn afternoon where, as usual, he is late to a Warblers performance. Being late to Warblers performances is sort of his thing lately, and it's probably annoying everyone else, but he can't pretend he minds the further delay when he's stopped on the stairs and finds himself looking up into the eyes of one of the most downright beautiful boys he's ever seen. It's not love at first sight, no way, but Kurt's soft voice is warm in his ears and he feels something, at least, which is more than he can often say these days. He can't help himself from unleashing a smile and grabbing Kurt's hand to pull him along to the performance. To be honest, he's got Kurt pegged in a second - no uniform, no idea what's going on, and that lyrical voice which can only belong to a singer, so of course he's a spy. Blaine should probably mind, but he's actually kind of flattered that anyone thinks he's worth spying on, and it makes him a bit giddy with amusement, at least partly because of who's doing it. He should do some big confrontation or something, but instead he shows off with Katy Perry, and then takes Kurt out with Wes and David so there's no way it's a date.

Before he knows it Kurt's about to cry and Blaine has to step up and play mentor, which he's strangely okay with. He wouldn't have minded dating Kurt, true, but being his friend will do as well.

He goes home smiling and whistling Teenage Dream. At dinner, his mom is suspicious, prods him with gentle exclamations of you look happy and do anything special today, honey? If he was someone else maybe he would laugh and blush and spill all about the adorable guy he serenaded that afternoon, but instead he just hums slightly in agreement and keeps eating.

She probably doesn't really want to know, anyway.

New years comes and goes, and he meets Jeremiah's hair. A few moments later he meets Jeremiah, and that's when stuff starts going wrong. Blaine admires him because they have the same hair issues, but where Blaine is afraid of his curls Jeremiah positively embraces them, so there's an aspect of admiration for his bravery. Afterwards, when the embarrassment has died down to an acceptable level and he can consider the event without wanting to sob into his pillow for hours at the hideousness of it all, Blaine wonders if that's how Kurt feels about him, a little.

Jeremiah seems to find him interesting, which is a blessing in itself. They go out for coffee a few times, talk philosophy and gay rights and all the other stuff Jeremiah is learning on his college courses. Blaine trips over his own feet in an endless attempt to please, to seem eager and intelligent and passionate and all the other things he's sure a guy like Jeremiah would be looking for.

After three coffee dates Jeremiah's face becomes the one Blaine paints onto the generic body of his fantasies when he's twisting himself beneath the sheets in the hot dark of his bedroom. His breath huffs out and later when he's sated and nearly asleep, he remembers that Valentine's Day is coming up. The perfect time to make it official with his first boyfriend. How exciting.

The next week he makes about as big a fool of himself as he thinks is possible, and it's enough to make him never want to even attempt flirting with anyone ever again - not even when Kurt, who is absolutely perfect and by now his best friend in the whole world, admits he thought they were sort of dating.

Blaine feels like even more of an idiot then, which is saying something, and he stays home from school pretending to be sick for a week before he can talk himself into the confidence he needs to face everyone again.

He wonders if he'll ever do anything right.

It's spring now and Kurt sings Blackbird and Blaine realises that maybe this whole just friends plan wasn't such a great idea as he thought. The only thing his brain can really do after that is run through how lucky he is that Kurt is so forgiving, because after all this time and all those stupid screw ups, glorious Kurt is still waiting patiently for Blaine to catch up.

He feels more open than he ever has in his life when he talks to Kurt over Pavorotti's coffin. For a second his strange mind drifts and wonders if every step forward in their relationship will be governed by a tiny animal death, but then he's kissing Kurt and he doesn't actually care.

It's summer and he's turned seventeen now, so he decides it's time to tell his parents about Kurt. They've briefly encountered him once or twice, each time with tight lips and reams of unsaid things hovering around them, a cloud of discomfort and mild disapproval every time Kurt's voice squeaked or he adjusted a flimsy scarf. He's probably the gayest person they've ever met, and even though they've never said more than a sentence to Kurt, Blaine finds it hard to believe they wouldn't at least suspect how he and Kurt feel about each other. Still, though, they know Kurt just like they know Wes and David - friends from Blaine's show choir thing, how nice, now go finish your homework and don't you let those grades drop. And straighten your tie.

He makes sure they're both home and arranges everything so they're sat at dinner and he subtly gets them talking about some random play, just so he can casually slip in oh yeah, I took Kurt there on our first date. They freeze for a second, look at each other as though the meet of their gazes will anchor them to the ground, and once they have something to lock on to they slowly resume chewing. There are a few seconds of silence while his mother finishes her mouthful and then she sets down her cutlery, pretends to adjust a napkin.

"So you and Kurt... You're_ dating_, then?" she prods, and she makes no suggestion that she knew already, but Blaine kind of thinks she must have. He figures out how to respond as she studies her peas like they're the most interesting thing she's seen all week, and her son having his first boyfriend is practically old news.

"Yeah," he settles on eventually, and begins to wonder how anyone can ever talk to their parents about their love life without wanting to shoot themselves in the face from embarrassment.

His parents exchange another look, this time a silent conversation more than a reassurance. He wonders if they're fighting. They never fight out loud; it's always done through the repressed privacy of huffed breaths and raised eyebrows. Whatever they're doing, his mother seems to win this time - with a tiny tilt of her head towards Blaine she secures a victory.

He will be forever grateful for that tiny silent battle, because then his dad does something that Blaine will forever be surprised by, and which he will be able to drag out of his memory every time he doubts his parents' support or approval in the future.

He smiles.

"That's great, Blaine," he says, and sure it's a little forced and awkward, but all the same Blaine knows it's a hundred times more sincere than anything else his father has ever said to him.

"He seems a very nice boy," his mother offers quickly, not one to be left behind. Blaine then gives them the most lovestruck look they have ever seen, and they wonder for a second how they could ever think this was anything but glorious, if it makes their son this happy.

"He is," Blaine says, with a small shrug.

Then his dad changes the subject, and they don't really mention it again. In conversation with their friends they will talk about_ Blaine's friend Kurt_, and he knows he should be upset that they won't talk about him having a boyfriend, but the fact that they're talking about Kurt at_ all_ means a lot anyway. He never thinks he'll be happier than those rare occasions over dinner when they enquire, with no agenda, how Kurt is.

That, if nothing else, gives Blaine hope.

He's seventeen and a half when he finally introduces Kurt to his family. His parents know they're dating, of course, and they've seen pictures of Kurt on Blaine's phone and glimpses of him in Dalton hallways and even quickly said hello to him once or twice as he's slipped out their front door on the few days Blaine can't keep their schedules from overlapping.

Now, though, Blaine's thinking that maybe they're ready for a conversation. Kurt has been pointedly Not Pushing Him, but considering how many strangely heartwarming if a little awkward bonding moments Blaine and Burt have had, it hardly seems fair.

So he invites Kurt to dinner.

He knows it's a risky move. His parents are still so barely okay with everything as it is, but he wants to anyway. He wants to because at this stage if he has to pick between his parents and Kurt, he'll choose Kurt.

He's never felt like that before.

Kurt turns up in a pink shirt and a sequinned jacket and 16-hole Doc Martens, which means Blaine has to smile. If he was meeting the semi-homophobic parents of his first boyfriend for the first time, he'd have spent hours trying to create a look so nondescript they'd forget he was there within the first five minutes. Kurt doesn't do nondescript, though. He doesn't need to. He knows he's perfect just as he is.

Blaine kisses Kurt gently in the porch for as long as he can get away with, damp lips and nervous smiles and warm breath shakily exhaled into each other's mouths. Then he grips Kurt's hand tightly in his and leads him to the dining room. Kurt knows where to go, of course; Kurt has spent more evenings here that he can count, and probably knows his way around better than Blaine does. Blaine's parents don't know that, though. They know the boys hang out in Blaine's room a few nights a week, and Kurt is always gone or about to go by the time they get home. They don't know that he's cooked in their kitchen and showered in their bathroom and curled up on their sofa for hours eating ice cream while the music channel blares on the television.

The fact that they still have so much to learn is another reason Blaine wants to do this.

His parents are waiting on them in the dining room. His dad holds a glass of wine; his mother is setting the table. They don't know how to look at Kurt when he arrives in the doorway like an especially fabulous hurricane, beaming and sparkling and already so, so much more than they'll ever be.

"Hi," he says, like it's not crazy that he's there at all. "I know we've technically met before but Blaine says I'm to introduce myself anyway. I'm Kurt Hummel."

His dad sort of nods, smiles slightly but tries not to look at Kurt's blazer like it's personally offended him. Blaine understands. He can hardly say he didn't predict that Kurt's flamboyance would be a bit much for them at first. His mum, though, surprises him; she seems to almost soften when Kurt holds out a limp hand to shake, and by the time he's complimented her dress with an obscure old film reference, she's smiling.

After dinner he's astounded when his parents don't immediately escort Kurt to the door. Instead, they bid both boys goodnight and head to their respective studies. Blaine takes Kurt up to his room and kisses him deep into the bed in celebration.

*

He's just turned eighteen years old, and it's the hottest summer any of them have ever lived through. His mother fills the freezer with ice cream and tries to interest him in plays and art shows, films and concerts, any sort of bonding activity that she can squeeze into their last few months together, but his entire brain is filled with _Kurt, Kurt, Kurt,_ and the final relief from their term-long separation. They lounge about in the Andersons' garden, Kurt lying under an umbrella and making half-hearted snarky comments as Blaine runs about and does cartwheels and tries to wrestle with their dog, who by now is ancient and nowhere near up to that kind of thing. When it becomes clear that the dog isn't interested, Blaine gets a sneaky look in his eyes, and without warning leaps at Kurt instead. 

Kurt squeaks and dodges quickly out of the way, but Blaine catches his foot on something in the scramble and goes tumbling onto his hands and knees on the hard tile of the patio. Straight away Maria leaps up from her seat in the living room where she's been watching them quietly through the window. Her mothering instinct kicks in and she's halfway to the door when she realises they're coming to her.

She dodges into the shadows next to the kitchen doorway, and watches as Kurt helps Blaine in through the porch.

" - this is why we don't tackle our boyfriends, isn't it honey," Kurt is saying, but she can see the softness around his eyes as he helps Blaine up onto the counter. Blaine's got a trembling lip and grazed knees, and Kurt flips on the radio before going to the cupboard where the bandaids are and extracting a few.

She wonders how he knew where they were kept.

He stops at the freezer too and extracts a Popsicle. Unwraps it, hands it to Blaine, and starts singing along to the cheesy girl band on the radio as he grins up at Blaine and gently fixes on the bandaids. She realises Kurt's crafted all this perfectly; the sugary snack to cheer him up, the fact that it's frozen which will cool him down and make him more comfortable, the cheesy music which nobody but Blaine enjoys will distract him. This is a boy who knows how to work his way around people. Or maybe he just really, really knows her son.

She knows she's lost Blaine to this boy, already. Her baby will be gone soon, pulled to New York by those big blue eyes, and she doesn't kid herself that he'll call a lot or visit any more than Thanksgiving and Christmas. She's missing out on these last few months with her precious boy, the child she craved for so long before she had him and who she always tried to do right by, even though she knows she screwed it up a lot.

Blaine's still in her house but he's not_ there,_ not really. He's already grown too big for this town, too big for_ her._ In fact, the only thing from his pre-graduation life that still fits him is this romance with the sarcastic boy she can see sucking on a Popsicle in her kitchen. The Popsicle Blaine had just been eating. They're trading it back and forth, no thought on the casual intimacy that suggests.

She's sad. But as she hovers in the shadows and watches her son perched on the kitchen counter, she sees Kurt gently smooth a crease out of the bandaid on his knee, and she can't be_ mad._ She wants to hate him so much - but the soft look in his eyes as he sticks his purple-stained tongue out in concentration and fixes Blaine up won't let her.

Blaine's lips quiver, like they always do when he's upset, but Kurt stops that with a gentle kiss.

She sees the way they look at each other, and thinks, _my son is gone_. But if she had to choose, she'd say she's glad it's this boy who took him.

_  
>THE STORY ENDS HERE. BUT OF COURSE, IT DOESN'T<strong> STOP<strong>_


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